What to do if your EIN is marked “Invalid” on PaymentWorks?

Step 1: Determine the validation status.

Once you have completed your new supplier registration form, you will be able to view your business details in your Company Profile located at the top right of your account. Within the Business Details tab, you may see “INVALID” appear in either the EIN validation field if your legal name/TIN combination was invalid when ran against the IRS database. You will also receive an E-mail notification if your tax information was not properly validated.

PaymentWorks checks your EIN against the IRS database. They check your legal name (found in Line 1 of your W9), your tax ID (the EIN), and your tax classification. If the INVALID status appears, this means the IRS did not recognize the combination you provided.

To resolve an INVALID tax ID status, make sure the Legal Name and TIN you provide is the same Legal Name/TIN as shown on your W-9 form. When Legal Name/TIN’s are updated on your registration(s) or in your Company Profile, the system will run a new IRS Validation. You can then check the “Business Details” section of your PaymentWorks account Company Profile to review the new IRS Validation status. NC State requires that your IRS validation is VALID before approving your registration.

Step 2: What to do if you have an INVALID status?

An Employer Identification Number (EIN) is assigned by the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the purpose of tax administration. If you have received a message that your EIN does not match IRS records or your legal name, ensure that the legal name you have entered on your PaymentWorks registration exactly matches what is on your IRS documentation, with no extraneous spaces, dashes, or other symbols. If you have done this and it still is marked “INVALID”, we recommend manually completing and uploading a W-9 form to your PaymentWorks registration account instead of generating an automatic W-9 through the registration form.

If your EIN has been recently issued or updated, the IRS database may not yet reflect this change. There is commonly a delay of 4-6 weeks between the IRS issuing a new EIN and updating their database.

Questions?

If you have completed the steps above and your Employer Identification Number (EIN) is still being marked as “Invalid”, we recommend contacting the NC State Supplier Onboarding team at supplier_onboarding@ncsu.edu.

For questions regarding taxes or applying for an EIN, we recommend contacting Student Legal Services at studentlegal@ncsu.edu.

For all other Appropriations and PaymentWorks questions, email sgappropriations@ncsu.edu.